


See. Kiss. Boom.

by nimmieamee (orphan_account)



Category: Eyewitness (US TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-08
Updated: 2017-01-08
Packaged: 2018-09-15 15:36:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9241931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/nimmieamee
Summary: When you kiss your soulmate for the first time, you get a power.You just don't get to choose which power.





	1. Chapter 1

A lock of dark hair fell into Philip Shea's eyes. It made Lukas' skin itch. 

If he'd been partnered with Rose, things would have been fine. Rose could do the assignment (she was actually _good_ at science) and once she'd done it Lukas could take their good grade and drop it on a shelf somewhere while he practiced for the National qualifiers. 

But Rose wasn't his partner. Mr. Morris had told her to move across the room and work with Tracey instead, and now Lukas was stuck Philip Shea. Philip from Queens. Philip acted like they didn't teach chemistry in Queens. He blinked at all their test tubes a few times, long lashes fanning out in confusion.

"You know what to do, right?" Lukas demanded. He made sure his tone put in a little unspoken message, the way Bo did with the farm workers: _you'd better know what to do, because I'm not going to teach you._

Philip Shea from Queens didn't hear the unspoken message, or was too stupid to get it. He shook his head. The headshaking exposed his long white neck. Lukas' irritation peaked.

He divided everything up -- beakers, test tubes, everything. 60-40, in Lukas' favor, because he needed a decent grade in chem if he was going to get a sponsorship. 

"Figure it out," he told Philip.

For a second, the long lashes blinked briefly in surprise. The dark brows peaked. Everything about this was muted, quiet, like someone with skin this smooth -- smoother than _Rose's_ \-- didn't need to make big gestures. 

"Okay," Philip said.

He took 40% of the beakers and test tubes and turned away. Even though he didn't look up again at Lukas after that, the strip of bare neck just beyond the collar of his jacket distracted Lukas all through the period.

It was bad. Maybe it wasn't. 

Forty minutes in Tracy passed him a note from Rose. It was folded-over, so all he saw was the little scribbled frowney face Rose had drawn on top. Then Tracy's glittering arm retreated -- she'd met her match in Tommy, and the new sheen it gave her was all Rose could talk about -- and Lukas flipped the note open only to discover that it said:

_so annoying!_

_I was thinking -- how about tonight?_

_I think mine will be better than Tracy's._

Lukas balled it up and shoved it in his pocket. His eyes strayed again to Philip Shea's neck.

-

Philip didn't have friends. Didn't make them. Two days passed and Lukas tracked him across the cafeteria, across the hall. Always the fall of dark hair and flash of white neck just at the corner of Lukas' eye. 

Lukas never looked at him head-on. Thinking about doing _that_ made him clamp his teeth down hard on the side of his mouth, maul his inner cheek.

"What are you _doing_?" Rose said, when she caught him at it.

"Nothing!" he said, too-loud. Probably no one was looking at him, but he felt like they were. Philip's head, four lockers down, turned slightly in his direction. Lukas felt rage crawl up his throat. 

Rose still hadn't forgiven him for begging off again. 

Was this a problem? Yes. Not because of Rose, but yes.

 _Everyone_ had to know by now that they still hadn't done it. Which made no sense, since it would determine the whole course of their relationship. How serious they were, how much this mattered. Rose wanted to know. Deserved to know. They'd been dating longer than Tracy and Tommy, and still hadn't taken the leap.

But Lukas didn't want to talk about that.

"You notice how he doesn't make friends?" Lukas said, and cocked a thumb at Philip so Rose would know who he was referring to. So everybody would. 

Philip's white ears went pink.

Tommy, two lockers down, barked out a laugh. Literally barked. Tommy's thing now was how his voice could dip and fall and go Darth Vader deep or Mickey Mouse high, or sound just like a turkey or a bloodhound or a bullfrog. It was a shitty match-talent. Tracy had gotten the better end of that deal.

"I think he's really weird," Rose said now, about Philip Shea. But she said it under her breath, like she didn't even think about Philip, not really. Her fingers tapped lightly up the row of buttons on Lukas' flannel. 

Lukas shrugged her off.

-

They didn't just have Chem together. A week in, somebody in the administration decided to transfer Philip into Lukas' English class too. It wasn't AP English or anything fancy -- just the regular English class -- and so there were lots of seats since most people in their grade wanted to take a more advanced course. 

Philip slid into the seat next to him anyway. Lukas jerked away reflexively, and then realized this gave him a better vantage point to look at Philip, and so something in him stayed like that, looking out of the corner of his eye.

Mr. Waddell didn't notice this. He floated a few feet off the ground the way he always did, writing down character names and connecting them with crazy loops.

He said, "So Demetrius thinks he loves Hermia but starts to love Helena. Hermia loves Lysander. Lysander, he loves her too until he doesn't, and then does again. Helena loves Demetrius, who doesn't love her yet. But why does she even waste her time with this guy? What makes her think she has a chance with Demetrius?"

Lukas only needed a B in this class, so he didn't bother answering. Tommy picked it up.

"He says it, like, in that part where he's complaining about Hermia kissing Lysander back in Athens."

Mr. Waddell leaned back on a cushion of air and snapped his fingers.

"Good! Go on."

"Well, it's like, he says he tried to kiss Hermia too, before the play. But kissing him gave Hermia nothing. He wasn't gonna match to her. But after she kissed Lysander she had a warning dream about her dad telling her she had to marry Demetrius. Kissing Lysander gave her the power to see the future, so _he_ had to be her match, not Demetrius."

Seeing the future was a good one. Lukas didn't think most people got good match-talents, not really. In movies and books it was all prophetic dreams, but in real life most people got glittery skin or the ability to hover really well. 

If you found your match, you got something out of it. A talent. 

So you were supposed to _want_ to kiss the person you were dating. 

Maybe a part of him just knew his power would be shitty. Not Lysander's impenetrable armor-skin or Hermia's fortunetelling. According to Lukas' grandmother, his grandfather had been able to charm butterflies. That wasn't what Lukas wanted out of his talent.

Tommy was still speaking.

"So Helena thinks she still has a shot, since it's obvious Lysander and Hermia matched, so if she can get Demetrius to admit he loves her then she can give him a talent and show him _they're_ a match--"

Mr. Waddell held up a hand.

" _Give_ him a talent? Think about what Shakespeare tells us with Puck. Puck makes them all think they're in love with the wrong person, but he leaves them a clue. What's the clue?"

Oddly, Philip Shea spoke up.

"Lysander's talent doesn't change," he said.

"Right!" said Mr. Waddell. "They switch their affections, and nothing happens. Hermia doesn't suddenly get a new power from Demetrius. Lysander doesn't start thinking Helena's made him -- made him breathe fire or something. Remember that in merry old England, people thought your power would change if you switched your spouse. Henry VIII's court used to spread it around that he got a new talent with every wife, because people assumed that the talent came out of your soul-match, then the other person gave you your talent. 

"Shakespeare's saying something radical. Lysander goes and falls in love with a new girl and nothing changes. His talent doesn't come from whoever he's making love to: it comes from _him_. Loving somebody just reveals your ability. It doesn't give it to you."

"They don't kiss," Lukas said suddenly.

"What?" said Mr. Waddell.

"They don't kiss," Lukas said again. "Like, I get it. If he kissed Helena and something happened -- see, kiss, boom, whatever. Then it would come from Helena, not from inside him. But nobody kisses anybody in this play. They _could_ kiss, but it's not written in that they do. So how do you even know whether they tried to change their talents?

"It's not just you loving somebody that gives you your match-talent. It's kissing the right somebody."

-

Obviously it would happen: he would kiss Philip Shea. 

It wasn't like he got dreams that could warn him off of doing it.


	2. Chapter 2

Before the kiss, though, he had to actually talk to Philip. The fact that he wanted to talk to Philip sat hazy in the back of his brain, an idea he refused to confront. It was only seeing Philip everywhere, looking at Philip always, that dragged the impulse up like it had been something half-submerged in a murky river. 

He couldn't talk to Philip at school, because everyone would be looking. He waited until after school, when Philip took the bus home along the north road. Always took the bus home. City kids didn't drive, apparently. But Lukas did. Lukas _roared_ , and even Philip had to notice that.

In the days that followed, he wouldn't even remember what he said after his bike was done roaring at Philip. Whatever they talked about -- something stupid, probably. Something show-off-y: the kind of thing Lukas might say to Rose. Lukas' words weren't usually the memorable kind. So he'd toss them out, see them land or miss or sink into people, whatever.

Or not whatever. Lukas hardly ever paid attention when his words sunk, but when it came to Philip Shea his words _sunk_. Philip had a way of looking disinterestedly off to the side, quiet about it, but after about something Lukas said his eyes snapped up, laser-focused. 

And up until then it was a game, but right then it was mutual submersion, like some part of Lukas was being swallowed up.

"Okay. I'll ride home with you," Philip Shea said, with a disinterest that was _so_ fake,

Amazingly fake. 

Had Lukas even invited him for a ride? Lukas couldn't remember. All Lukas had in his brain for the rest of the day was the snap-into-place feeling he got when Philip actually looked at him. 

-

It wasn't the first question Lukas asked him. Just the first question Lukas remembered asking.

"What do you want your match-talent to be?"

Philip started to look a little like the old farm dog Lukas had had as a kid, a creature so used to being ignored that something in it went wild when it got some attention. Only with less yipping, more light in his eyes.

"Oh, we're talking about this now?"

They were sitting in the woods, which was convenient because it meant Lukas had pine cones on hand and could throw them at him.

"Answer the question."

"It's kind of a personal question to ask."

"What's personal about it?" Lukas said. "Answer the question."

He'd never asked Rose this before, even though Rose was obsessed with soulmates and match-talents. Her mother could walk through walls. Her father could do this thing at night where he reached up a hand to a star, and bam. He brought down a pearl. 

"What would _you_ want _yours_ to be?" Philip said, probably to be contrary.

The answer came quick and easy, like the wind in the trees had picked it up and blown it right out of Lukas' mouth.

"Fly."

"Original," Philip said. 

Lukas threw two more pine cones at him.

"Ow! Okay. It's classic. _Classic_."

"Fuck yeah it's classic," Lukas said. "What about you?"

By now Philip was lying in the dirt, the fall of his dark hair mingling with the grass. Lukas wanted to touch it, so he did. And then he thought -- he thought he was so hungry that his only option was to kiss Philip. It was that, or stuff his mouth with pine cones. He needed to do _something_ with his mouth, anyway, and his brain was starting to make every option but kissing Philip look like a stupid one.

And he shut his brain off when he kissed Philip, anyway. It was just the press of lips, the softness, the ghosting breath against -- and this, this _shimmering_ feeling Lukas had never had before.

That was kissing just to the side of Philip's lips. Missing them by a hair, so that it wasn't a real kiss. It wasn't anything Philip could reciprocate. Not anything that would mean anything, or trigger a talent, not that kissing a _boy_ would ever do that to Lukas.

He was still hungry after, with that stomach-gnaw that made his brain loud and crazy. But at least Philip, who seemed so calm -- Philip With the Calm White Neck -- was looking a little crazy now, too. 

"I'd want to breathe underwater," he said abruptly.

"Original," Lukas said, because he had to say something. He had no idea if it was original or not. He thought first that it was fine and that he wanted to give it to Philip, give Philip the chance to suck oxygen out of ponds and rivers and the ocean; and then he thought of Philip's neck messed up with gills or something and said, "That wouldn't work for you. That can't be your match talent."

Philip picked up a pine cone and stared at the sun coming through the trees to come through the pine cone.

"Okay. Yeah," he said, giving in too fast.

-

The plan wasn't to be an asshole to Philip at school; the plan was to be nothing to Philip at school. Nothing. It should have been easy to be nothing, especially if Philip had cooperated.

He didn't.

He acted like he sensed that this plan was less a plan than it was total panic. It was one thing to spend weekends fucking around with Philip, not-kissing him in all kinds of don't-count places, like the curve of his cheek or the hollow of his collarbones. It was another thing entirely to see Philip in the hallways every Monday and realize that this was the person Lukas was starving to touch. 

Not Rose. Philip.

Eventually he pulled Philip into the bathroom and told him not to talk to him in school, and not to talk to his friends either.

Philip blinked at him.

"But you're friends with everybody."

That was exaggerating it. Lukas got to know people easily, but didn't like that many. He would have sold the entire junior class to qualify for Nationals. Still, he talked to everybody, and everybody liked him, and that he was dating Rose and they kept doing stories about him for the school paper and nobody was going to turn him down if he wanted to sit with them or go to their party or whatever.

But people were supposed to be like that: popular. Lukas was supposed to be like that. And he couldn't trade that for Philip.

"Am I just supposed to pretend I don't spend hours and hours with you?" Philip said now. He made it sound like Lukas was saying something unreasonable.

"It's not a question. It's a warning," Lukas said.

Then he left, before anyone could see them together. If he snapped and had to hit Philip or something, well. Then at least he'd warned him.

Lukas had never wanted to be like his father before, but now, every time he got back after the weekend rush of Philip, he thought of Bo. He wanted Bo's match-talent, that odd little knack Bo had for freezing time just when Lukas had done something stupid, and then reeling it back and rewinding. 

Just a few seconds. Bo could only pull the world back and undo a few seconds. 

Lukas would only need to undo a few seconds. He didn't want to let go of their weekends. But he would rewrite, if he could, at least the moment he'd spilled mountain dew on Philip's shirt and jacket, made him strip down to just his unmarred skin. Would want to undo the seconds he'd spent staring at his back. His lashes. His mouth. Grabbing for him, and always dodging that mouth at the last second, because he couldn't -- _couldn't_ \-- match with a boy.

What would people think if they knew he'd thought about it? Or carefully not-thought about it, which was the same thing. What would people think if they'd seen him? 

He didn't even care what they thought, actually. It was just the being seen: that was bad enough. That was what made living with Bo a nightmare: if he did wrong, Bo could see, and Bo could find a way to erase the wrong, but that wasn't the same as if Lukas had ever done anything right, and they both knew it.

"Don't make me warn you," Bo would say sometimes, like he thought they were normal and Lukas was the kind of kid he could warn off of being a disappointment. Lukas wasn't. Bo would just have to wind him back, undo his behavior. That was all. 

But all week those words played in Lukas' mind.

_Don't make me warn you_ , Lukas thought, when he caught Philip looking at him during lunch.

Tommy caught it too.

"What's he want?" he said, jerking a finger at Philip.

"He's fucking weird. He was totally stalking me this weekend," Lukas said. 

"Oh my god," Rose said. " _What_? Is that why you didn't call me?"

They asked for details. Lukas tossed some details out. Just words. Like he was rewinding the weekend, replacing it with whole new events.

He half-believed in those events when he got home, but they didn't make him feel good. Instead, he felt ravenous. Like he'd never sated himself with half-kisses at all. 

And for some reason he kept thinking about Bo, and not just Bo's power but the way Lukas had forgotten what his mom's power was. And Bo wasn't telling.

And sometimes Lukas thought that whatever it was, it had to have been something that could make living with Bo bearable. 

-

He started to feel like he had to take Philip far, like Philip didn't even belong at school, like it was ridiculous for Philip to show up and expect to slide into that other part of Lukas' life.

When he decided he was going to kiss Philip (because he wanted to; because he wanted to get it over with; because he was starving; because he needed this to be over), he drove Philip up past the North Road, past winding streams and a glassy isolated pond, through miles and miles of woods.

His dad's cabin would be empty. It had been empty all year. Bo said that there had been some kind of accident there, that he'd had to call in the sheriff and stuff, and he just hadn't felt like using it since.

Philip tried to kiss him first this time. Lukas pushed him away so hard that one of the bottles of vodka they'd brought was knocked out of his hands, into a bunch of little shards. He wasn't sorry. He wanted this, but he didn't want to want it, so he didn't want Philip to control it.

He thought,

_This time it'll be real._

_This time we'll do it._

_What if it's a match?_

_What if it_ isn't?

That would feel worse. The starving feeling wasn't starving but just loneliness he hadn't noticed before. He wanted it to end, really end. 

He kissed Philip without thinking. That was the only way to do it, making it fast and as inevitable as dead bodies in a gangster movie. This time he felt the full press of Philip's mouth, felt like finally he was getting his fill, only this time there was some kind of lightning in his arteries. Philip was kissing him back. Everything was electric. 

He opened an eye and saw the shards of the broken bottle on the floor, and his eye looked black.

Completely black. It shouldn't look like that. He shoved Philip off again.

It was only the right eye; the left one looked normal. But that wasn't normal enough for _him_. He panicked, and now he was shoving at Philip and Philip was saying, "Okay, okay," and it was only when he caught his reflection in the dust-caked window that he calmed down. Both eyes looked normal. 

But then he turned back to look at the cabin and _it_ didn't look normal at all. There were four men there, shadows of men, jerking around like puppets, going through the same motions.

The final man picked up the gun. Every time. The other three went down. Every time. But the worst thing was the way the force of it knocked the third one back against the cabin door, and then he bounced forward. The bounce was a little bit gentle, like he was just starting forward in surprise, looking right at Lukas. Apologetic about it. 

When all three went down, for a split-second, Lukas' right eye showed him the cabin covered in blood.

"Lukas?" Philip was saying.

Lukas said, "What the fuck did you do to me?" 

Before his eyes, four men walked in.

Before his eyes, three men went down. 

The blood, he thought, had an arc to it. It went up -- up -- and then swung back at him. Every time. 

-

Of course, your match-talent came from you. Not from your soulmate. 

They were just the trigger for it. 

See. Kiss. Boom.

**Author's Note:**

> Parts of _Eyewitness_ didn't totally work for me, and specifically those parts with Lukas, but I thought this was an interesting idea.


End file.
